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Colorado 6th grader's beer-making experiment headed for Space Station

Michal Bodzianowski, 11, a student at STEM School and Academy, holds up a fluid mixture enclosure for his adviser Sharon Combs to inspect. Michal's prize-winning entry — "What Are the Effects of Creation of Beer in Microgravity and Is It Possible?" — will launch into space in December. (Erin Hull, The Denver Post)

Eleven-year-old Michal Bodzianowski is too young to drink the stuff, but the Highlands Ranch sixth-grader will be the first person to experiment with making beer in space. "My dad posted this joke on Facebook, that this is the world's first microbrewery in space," Michal said. "Then he had to explain it to me."

Michal, who avidly reads Popular Science magazine to "find out what's trending now in the science world," is more likely to know about the spacecraft landing systems than Colorado's latest craft beers.

But when his class at Douglas County's STEM School and Academy entered a national science competition — with the hope of getting their microgravity experiment flown to the International Space Station — beer came to mind.

Since the start of the spaceflight experiments program, more than 17,500 students from 60 communities have been immersed in real-life science, from designing experiments for spaceflights to going through a NASA flight-safety review.

The 11 experiments that won the competition this year included entries from two fifth-graders, a middle-school team, one seventh-grader — and sixth-grader Michal.

Beer, he wrote in his design proposal, is "an important factor in future civilization as an emergency backup hydration and medical source."

In space, if a project exploded, wounded people and polluted most of the water, he theorized, "the fermentation process could be used to make beer, which can then be used as a disinfectant and a clean drinking source."

Along with the other sixth-grade and eighth-grade students from his school, he worked on his proposal while the school worked to raise the $21,500 that winning would cost.

The sum includes launch costs and expenses for Nanorocks, the commercial firm that flies these educational payloads to the International Space Station and has two platforms on its U.S. National Laboratory.

Sharon Combs, a teacher who worked closely with the students, felt the experience made science relevant to them.

"It was an opportunity for them to experience science as real life, doing lab experiments with the intricacies demanded by NASA," she said.

Michal's experiment, when launched, will be in a silicon tube about 6 inches long. Clasps on the tube will segregate hops, malted barley, yeast and water.